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[Mod/Resource] The Butcher (HotS) animation for EEs & classic


Ulb

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Was there any need for this?—No, not really.

Why did I do it then?—For my amusement, for my curiosity, and for my man-crush on the Butcher—all of this spurred me on.

 

 

UrjaFxL.gif

 

 

So this contains the Butcher animation from Heroes of the Storm, some of his sound files and a general installer to put them into the game. There is no playable content in this mod, it is just a modding resource. (A mod using the animation is in the works though..)

 

*edit* I should note that this works only for the EE versions. I do not plan to release a version for the classic game using Infinity Animations since I no longer play/mod with it. If anyone feels like doing that though, they are more than welcome to.

Support for the classic engine (with InfinityAnimations) has been provided by Gwendolyne.

 

Some notes on the animation:

 

- Current version uses a copy of the “stand idle” animation for its “combat ready” animation.

The reaon for this is that oddly enough the attack animations line up a lot better with the “stand idle” animation. (The combat ready animation is fully functional though so if there is any need/interest I can upload that as well.)

 

- He does not attack with his cleaver.

His attack animations are huge anyway, with his cleaver animations more than doubling the animation's size. In addition to that, the 3d nature of the animation, shape of the cleaver and view angle made the cleaver “change size” dramatically whenever it was moved into the “camera” (south facing attacks). At times the cleaver appeared bigger than the Butcher himself. So for now he just hacks and slashes with his hook.

 

- There were no death/dead animations for him so I had to improvise a bit.

His death animation is him dissolving into smoke instead of falling down and he has no corpse.

 

- He has also an unusual sleep animation as a result of the missing dead animation. I used his "stunned" animation which means instead of falling down he just drops his head/arms and shambles a bit form one side to the other. Usually the game just loops the last frame of the sleep animation for as long as it needs to. With the continuous "stunned" animation I got around that by simply prolonging the sequences. Bottom line: If a sleep effect doesn't run for longer than one minute everything is fine. Anything longer than that and his animation will "freeze" until he wakes up.

 

That's it. I mostly just wanted to see how easy/hard it is to port an animation from a 3d model and also, I just really like the Butcher.

 

Credits:

 

Original Art - Blizzard Entertainment

Porting to Source Filmmaker/HLMV - Yaron (https://sfmlab.com/profile/3762/)

Porting to BGEE/SOD/2EE - Ulb

Porting to classic BG engine - Gwendolyne

Argent77 for the automated animation slot code I stole from him. smile.png

 

Programs used:

 

Audacity

Gimp

HLMV (Source Filmmaker version)

NearInfinity

SimpleScreenshot

 

Download (v1.3)

 

V1.1 Changes:

Modified the north facing sequence of attack animation 1. The cleaver appears slightly smaller now.

Changed his death sound to reflect him dissolving into smoke.

 

V1.2 Changes:

Modified the animation's contrast and saturation. Looks a lot more crisp/detailed now.

 

V1.3 Changes:

Added support for classic BG by Gwendolyne

Changed GetHit animation sequence to look less "choppy".

 

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*edit* I should note that this works only for the EE versions. I do not plan to release a version for the classic game using Infinity Animations since I no longer play/mod with it. If anyone feels like doing that though, they are more than welcome to.

 

 

 

If you let me a couple of days, I could manage to port it to IA.

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As I've said, if you want to do that I have absolutely no objections.

You could basically just use my old bear animations mod, change the file prefix and use a new animation slot, that should do the trick. I just don't want to do it since I have no need for it.

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Thank you.

 

Can't say yet whether I'll port more animations or not. There is still quite a bit of manual work involved so we'll have to see if the mood strikes me again.

With that said, there are quite a few interesting animations from HotS alone...

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I fear a larger one would prevent the cre to enter a few rooms.

 

IIRC in EE engine (ini files) personal space and selection circle are treated independently - you can set larger "ellipse" to not make it look silly compared to other large creatures but still maintain low "personal_space".

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Don't you think the selection circle is too small?

I fear a larger one would prevent the cre to enter a few rooms.

 

 

Nice work.

 

It looks kind of small in your screenshot but I would say in that case functionality goes over esthetic. I was toying around with personal space as well (since his attack animations are so large and often clip into other animations) and it does look better with personal space ~4/5 but then you can't pass through some doors so I kept it at 3.

 

While we're at it; I'd like to hear your opinion on his Gethit animations. Do you feel like they make the animation look too "choppy", especially when attacked by multiple fast hitting enemies? I'm thinking about replacing them with a 1frame sequence made from the SD animation..

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Yes, I noticed a few weird glitches in the bam files but after having ported hundred of animations from Diablo II, Arcanum and Oblivion, I know it is not obvious to provide perfect fluent movements with the raw stuff from other games. For example, to avoid the same SD and SC files from Diablo, a good trick is to double the SC frames and save the file as SD.

And GH looks a bit like a frenzy dance. ;)

 

If you want, I can have a look at GH this weekend.

 

Technically speaking, I modified your tp2 so that you won't have to update two mods: it will install both on EE engines and BG2, ToB, BGT WITH Infinity Animations.

I only added a 2da file and a workaround I use to make my incoming BGT mod compatible with EE: when copying the bam files into override folder, I rename them on the fly according to the game engine (XXXX or IA weird stuff).

 

I just need to register the butcher in IA forum and I will send you the tp2.

 

Edit : done !

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